Our story
A small company of writers who still use pens.
We believe a letter is one of the few things left that takes time, costs care, and means something when it arrives. So we keep making them, the old way.
How we began
A wet Tuesday, a kitchen table, a box of forgotten pens.
It started because a grandmother in Cornwall hadn’t had a handwritten letter from anyone in almost a year. We wrote one for her grandson, who lived in Madrid and felt guilty about it. She kept the letter on her mantelpiece. Her neighbour wanted one too.
Word travelled slowly at first, the way it should. We added a second writer, then a third. We moved out of the kitchen and into a small workroom at the back of the cottage. There are six of us now, and a very patient dog called Rook.
We still live and work in the English countryside, in the same cottage. Every letter we send is written there, or at one of our writers’ own desks, in their own homes, by their own hands.
Norton & Eleanor, who began all this.
What we promise
Four things we will not do.
We’d rather tell you what we won’t do than make a speech about what we will. These four promises are the whole of it.
We will not automate.
No AI drafts, no mail-merge tricks, no fake handwriting robots. Every letter is written by a named human.
We will not pretend.
If a letter isn’t our best work, we don’t send it. If we’re not the right people for your project, we’ll say so.
We will not rush.
Most letters are written within a week. If a project needs longer, we take longer. If it’s urgent, we’ll be honest about whether we can help.
We will not grow past ourselves.
We take a limited number of commissions each week. When the book is full, the book is full. We think that’s how it should be.
A short history
A few dates, loosely kept.
The kitchen table
Two friends, one letter to a grandmother in Cornwall, and the first whisper of what was coming.
The second writer
James joins. We move out of the kitchen and into the workroom at the back of the cottage.
The first business clients
A bookshop in Sussex asks us to write to all of its customers before Christmas. We say yes. We barely sleep.
Commissions begin
We write our first family history. Bound, posted, kept. We realise this is part of what we do now.
Six writers, one cottage
Somewhere between two and three hundred letters a month, give or take, depending on the weather.
If the letter is worth sending, it is worth writing properly. If it isn’t worth writing properly, don’t send it.Pinned to the cottage wall
Come and write a letter with us.
Or just say hello. We read everything that comes into the cottage, and we reply to every message ourselves.
Say hello